IMS Guidelines for DevelopingAccessible Learning Applications

Every person learns differently. At its best, online learning allows
each user to interact with lesson material in his or her preferred way,
relying on their individual strengths while discounting as much as
possible their weaknesses. The principles of excellent software design
call on developers to work in full knowledge of the range of human
skills and limitations. Software designers of teaching materials and
activities, in particular, must strive to achieve this high
standard.

When a user has a disability, access to learning software may depend
entirely on how flexibly that product can deliver its content. Some
users may need only to modify the parameters in which media is
presented; other users may require entirely different media. Developers
who achieve the kind of flexibility that diversity requires will enhance
the accessibility of their product.

At a minimum, developers should provide text representations for all
media types. This baseline will help address access for many users.
That said, it should be noted that users with learning disabilities
benefit from graphical presentations. For this reason, the practice of
providing text-only content as an alternative to inaccessible multimedia
content may not be an effective solution for users with cognitive
disabilities.

A number of resources that address flexible media delivery are
currently available. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative
provides accessibility guidelines for W3C technologies such as HTML,
XML, SMIL, CSS & SVG. It also provides more general guidelines for
web content accessibility, authoring tool accessibility, and user agent
accessibility. More information links are available in the Appendix.
Two other comprehensive guides are referenced here.

When text is correctly structured and formatted, it can be the most
flexible way to present content. To make distributed online learning
accessible, developers of learning platforms must provide a means to
render digital text in alternative formats.

Audio elements can add to the general appeal of online learning
materials while making them more accessible to those who are
print-impaired learners, such as those with visual impairments or
dyslexia. However, developers should provide alternatives to ensure
that learners who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are not
disadvantaged.

Common audio accessibility problems include:

lack of captions and/or transcripts.

poor sound
quality.

inability to control volume.

Learning system developers may enhance the accessibility of audio for
all users by following these practices:

Provide a means to include captions and/or transcripts.

Provide volume controls.

Provide visual equivalents to
audio alerts (e.g. show a text alert on the screen whenever an error
beep is played).

Content creators or educators may enhance the accessibility of audio for
all users by following these practices:

Provide transcripts or captions for all essential audio.

Consider providing other forms such as ASL or captions with images.

Resources:

An authoring tool to add captions, subtitles, and audio descriptions to
digital media is available free-of-charge for content creators and
educators. This tool, MAGpie (Media Access Generator), is available
from the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM).

Proprietary software exists that allows authors to add sign language
displayed using animated characters. One company developing this
software is Vcom3D. They have created "SigningAvatars" that
are able to render content in Signed English and Pidgin Signed English
(and possibly ASL in the future). More information is available from the Signing Avatar website.

Images can provide essential information. But without text support,
images are not accessible for users who are blind or have low-vision.
Developers must provide users with a way to access visual information.
Providing text identification, or alternative text, will also benefit
users of text-only browsers, such as mobile phones. In addition to
providing, developers should ensure that images are scalable, so that
users can enlarge them for better clarity.

Common image accessibility problems include:

Failure to provide alternate text.

Poor image resolution
that restricts the ability of low-vision users to enlarge images.

Learning system developers may image enhance the accessibility of images
for all users by following these practices:

Provide a means to include text alternatives of images.

Provide a zoom feature.

Content creators or educators may
enhance the accessibility of images for all users by following these
practices:

Provide text alternatives for images.

Use SVG
features that improve accessibility (see section 4.2.3).

Use
the highest practical resolution for bit-mapped graphics when use of SVG
is not possible (e.g., photographs).

Multimedia is the combination of text, graphics, video, animation,
and sound. Thus, a given piece of multimedia content combines the
access needs of each media type represented. Multimedia can be useful
for many groups of learners, since a multi-modal presentation of
information can be easier to understand. In general, users benefit when
alternatives are available for each media type.

Common multimedia accessibility problems include:

digital videos without captions, transcripts or audio descriptions.

Learning system developers may enhance the accessibility of multimedia
for all users by following these practices:

Provide the means to include accessibility features, such as
captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions, within the multimedia
format provided by the application.

Content creators or educators may
enhance the accessibility of multimedia for all users by following these
practices:

Follow all relevant suggestions for enhancing accessibility for
text, audio and images, since multimedia can combine all of these
elements.

Consider the importance of the
timing of media delivery when planning access features. For example, a
"talking head" video may need only a stand-alone transcript
of the audio, but a documentary including graphics and other important
visuals may require captions in order to maintain the link between
visuals and narration.